Hasselblad and DJI announce 50MP medium-format drone kit

The first product of the collaboration between Chinese drone maker DJI and Swedish medium-format camera manufacturer Hasselblad will be a long range drone fitted with the same 50MP CMOS sensor that is used in a number of current medium-format cameras, including the new X1D mirrorless camera.

What the companies are calling a ‘fully integrated aerial photography platform’ will combine DJI’s industrial Matrice 600 drone with Hasselblad’s recent A5D aerial camera. The camera, which has no moving parts of its own, will come with an adapted HC 50mm F3.5 lens that has its focus set to infinity. When used with the 50c sensor the lens offers a view similar to that which we would expect from a 42mm lens on a 35mm system camera.

DJI’s M600 can carry a maximum of 6kg/13.2lb which the company says means it can carry the Hasselblad A5D and a Ronin-MX gimbal 'with ease' – together the camera, lens and gimbal will weigh just over 4kg/8.95lb.

As both products are already on sale the bundle deal is available now priced $25,999/€24,400/¥189,999 (Chinese yuan) – all before tax. The UK price has yet to be announced. For more information see the Hasselblad and the DJI websites – below are a couple of official samples from Hasselblad.

The A5D-M600 bundle is the first joint product following DJI’s recent investment in Hasselblad. The combination of the M600 and the A5D provides users with today’s most advanced aerial optics and sensors integrated with one of the world’s most reliable aerial platforms. In addition, the two companies are looking at additional joint products for the future.

‘Combining best-in-class aerial optics with the world’s most powerful aerial platform is a natural development for DJI and Hasselblad. We are delighted to provide this unique bundle to professional photographers, surveyors and mappers’, said Perry Oosting, CEO of Hasselblad.’

DJI’s M600 is designed for maximum performance and smart flight safety. The M600 is fully compatible with DJI’s advanced gimbal system the Ronin-MX. It comes fully equipped with 6 intelligent batteries, A3 flight controller, Lightbridge 2 Professional HD transmission system, a dust-proof propulsion system and powerful app control.

Hasselblad’s A5D camera combines the world’s best optics and sensors with a modern, compact design. The sensors are almost twice the size of those used in today’s best 35 mm DSLR cameras and the A5D lens comes in 50 mm.

Hasselblad’s Natural Colour Solution (HNCS) comes standard and helps optimize difficult color gradations straight out of the box. The A5D has a strong seal on the camera body and sensor unit preventing dust in the optical system.

Bargain! I can see these selling in the tens of thous... OK, tens. I hope Google buy all of them so they can update the lousy out-dated low level imagery in so much of Google Maps /Earth. Google will be the only people able or willing to afford the insurance policy for it.

Now it's an interesting twist. What am I going to do with my Nokia 808 Pureview now? BTW I like how Hasselblad is trying to define its own niche. Though, with that price per camera unit + lens... hovering up in the air...

2.The Rise of Drones and Personal Injury Lawsuits - Robert J. Debrywww.robertdebry.com/the-rise-of-drones-and-personal-injury-lawsuits/Fortunately, a drone operator is almost always responsible for any injury, harm or ... inflicted substantial injury to the victims, cementing a formative public opinion ... If you've been the victim of a drone-related accident, discuss your options with ...

3.Drone cuts off tip of photographer's noseWhat started out as goofy holiday promotion ended terribly when a drone crashed into the face of Brooklyn Daily photographer Georgine Benvenuto, clipping the end of her nose and cutting her chin. The drone was a promotion by TGI Fridays

There are 500.000 motorcycle accidents and more than 1.500.000 car accidents each year worldwide. Some of them cause death casualties. Compared to 12 drone accidents of all time worldwide what are you talking about?

F weber...as a sales rep to medical devices you should know more about HSE health and safety sytems

comparing essential public transport system vs non essential drone (limited application and usage)....joking?? It is statistically signicant and important if injury is directly related number of drones usage???500.000 drones usage ??none.. despite small number of drones usage and increasing numbers of drone related injuries are significant ....and a lot of under reporting injuries as well.....Drone accidents are preventable if concealed blade system is used instead of open blades ( tail propellers of helicopeter blades are concealed ) because of this....evidence based...compare apples to apples not oranges

Helicopter tail rotors tend not to be covered, hence the safety briefing never approach or leave a helicopter from the rear.That is the main difference, safety briefing, helicopter pilots have an incredible amount of expensive safety training. They loose expensive licences if they do not keep to regulations. The normal pilot of a high street purchased drone will have zero safety training and will not know any air laws or even consider how their flying might effect other aviation. Drones are here to stay of course.

From the period 2000 to November 2013, worldwide, no members of the public were injured by a helicopter or fixed wing engaged in aerial filming or photography. 150 crashes with scores of death and injury to crew but, surprisingly no public injured in any of these incidents.The opposite is true with drone use, where pilot and cameramen are at less risk than the public.

Sadly, in March 2014 in Seattle a member of the public was killed when a news chopper toppled from a rooftop heli deck.

Our (USA) suburban City Council is very supportive of drones. They like their usage for construction project proposals, and construction project updates. I suspect that a system like this would be good for that type of commercial usage. When you are dealing with multi-million dollar projects, a $26,000 drone would be just a drop in the financial bucket. In the long run, It's probably cheaper than repeatedly doing aerial photography by plane too.

A drone can easily and economically be repositioned or reused to get exactly the shot desired - if it is within the capability of the equipment used, i.e. camera, lens, drone, and weather conditions, whereas to keep manipulating a chopper is far more expensive.

A lot of my aerial photography is done between 10 and 50 feet off the ground. You can't do that with a real copter in general and if you tried you'd be blowing trees, dust, water... whatever is below you. The small size and maneuverability means I can also fly for video and stills in ways that would be impossible with a copter.

Maybe the rubber feet are not feet but protection to not hurt.If they where thicker, the middle part would not get abased - witch it will.As it is it is not logic. If my observation is correct despite no knowledge about drones; then the conceptors of that drone don't deserve trust for the rest of it.

If you read the laws instead of media/articles, there is no limit except for commercial usage and when flying near airports. If you are flying as a hobbyist away from airports, you can go as high as you want. Notice people fly weather balloons with all sorts of gear attached well above 10,000 feet...and they are not R/C controlled, so they have no way to avoid aircraft.

junk1, weather-ballons are often launched in an area where aircraft are prohibited from entering. They can also be fitted with transponders, and the people launching them got special permits to launch them. In the country I live, you cannot just launch a large weather-balloon or any large mass of balloons, it has to be cleared with authorities, up to 2 weeks prior to launch.

I don't l think there is any requirement in the USA but am not 100% sure. I know for sure that large model rockets need to get FAA clearance, and planes are kept away. Balloons could go anywhere, there's no way they could clear the airspace I think.

Anyhow, in USA, hobbyists can fly as high as they want. The media is lazy and just keeps parroting prior incorrect articles, and the rules are poorly written - can be read two different ways. But past AMA comments make it clear that the 400' rule is only when near airports. Plus it's common sense - model airplanes can go well over 100MPH - keeping them under 400' would be nearly impossible.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-34936739Toddler's eyeball sliced in half by drone propeller - BBC Newswww.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-3493673926 Nov 2015 - Oscar Webb's eye was sliced in half by a propeller after the operator, ... It was the first drone injury Oscar's surgeon had seen, but she said it ...Drones WITHOUT Blade covers are disasters

The Dutch Police Are Training Eagles To Take Down DronesCityLab-3 Feb 2016... and eagles in London offered a real bird's-eye view of the city. ... One minute, a four-propeller drone is whirring about in a enclosed space; ... hit the drone in such a way that they don't get injured by the rotors,” said LeBaron

Columbus model left with a bruised eye after being hit in the face by ...Daily Mail-11 May 2016... 25, from Columbus, Ohio, was filmed being hit in the face by a drone ... on top of a rock when the four-propeller craft veered in her direction,

If you have a helicopter in your garden, it's probably a good idea to not let your children play near it, I doubt many people have a helicopter in their gardens but quite a lot might have a cheap drone.

I would also check BWI for UAV Insurance, I got a card saying New/Lower UAV Insurance rates for 2017, called and they saved me about 10%. They are also offering multiple UAV discounts and hull or physical damage coverage. Check out www.bwifly.com

If this horrible drone fad continues, on Photo shows and Fotokinas, next to drone manufacturers, there will be exhibitors that will demonstrate their anti-drone radar and projectile systems and surface-to-air mini missiles. "New way to keep the skies safe from drones: meet the S-400 SAM 4 SKYCAM, with short-, medium- and large-distance missiles. Max speed 4800m/s, able to engage 17 targets at once. It sniffs your Canon or Hassy drone before you say 'cheese'.

My only gripe is the choice of 50mm- 42mm equivalent on 35mm FF sensor. They do not say if it is exchangeable or not. It might be great for certain applications but these drones are by law limited to max altitude of 122m or 400 ft and from there lens like this provides very limited coverage. Exemtions could be granted by relevant authorities but flying these type of drones too high is not simple due to their size hence limited visibility. Most drone operators I know use WA (24mm being almost a norm) lenses for most jobs, longer lenses ( Inspire 1 Pro and X5 ip to 100mm) only for a unique perspectives or to be able to get closer view from a larger distance.

I'm not doing this just because I'm not competent to cobble such, but others are and could be systems integrators and might be happy with a profit margin of less than 200%. Not sure what "industrial grade" quality of the 'blad improves images and function but I'd be tickled to move from Phantom 3 image quality to images from my a6000 or A7RII. I don't think viewers would discern the industrial difference.

You can buy a $500 copter complete with everything you need to take 12MP stills using a small sensor stabilized camera. Then there are all kinds of alternatives for custom built, almost ready to fly, and ready to fly systems at many sizes and price points.

This is simply another one. But what is special about what DJI has been doing with the Phantom, Inspire and now the Matrice 600 is integrate the camera, stabilizer, copter, radio, software, hi def live streaming into a out of the box solution that works well, requires minimal setup, and is affordable compared to comparable systems.

I have built 6 multirotors in the past 4 years and also bought an Inspire that worked perfectly right out of the box. I

In my case the Inspire is way better and ultimately cheaper than the two similar size Tarot copters that I built for still (APS format) and video work.

If the Inspire had its M4/3rds camera a year ago I would not have bothered building a copter to shoot stills with my Sony APS.

Ever try looking into a window and notice that it's impossible? MUCH more sunlight reflects off the window than goes inside the house, hits the person, and goes back through the window. At night you can see inside, but hardly is a vibrating moving platforms ideal for low light photography. I really wish people such as yourself would not joke around (assuming you're not serious) because lots of idiots contact their congressmen (Schumer comes to mind) and then they feel a need to over legislate. And imagine if that new law also affects general photography.

I agree with AlanG 100%. People making assumptions and stupid comments should do a bit of a research of current drone technology. DJI would be a good start to learn, IMHO.I have no commercial association with DJI but have been using their systems for my own custom build drones over last 4 years. As AlanG says, their fully integrated almost ready to fly out of the box systems are pretty amazing for the price. I personally am waiting for Inspire2 which would fulfill my needs just fine. I would like to see a Sony sensor in it and an open storage platform for 4K RAW before making my move. Now when their cooperation with Hasselblad seems to be at full swing, we should see something very exciting to happen around their aspiring Inspire 1 platform hopefully before too long ☺☺☺

You obviously do not know much about this drone and current DJI drone technology in general. It has many safety features built-in, and I dare to say that it is less likely to crash than a real helicopter which carries much more valuable cargo. Pilot error could be more likely to cause a crash than a mulfuction but drone like this is not going to be piloted by a novice I would have thought.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the drone crashes per flight are vastly higher than helicopter crashes per flight. In fact it's not much of a guess. Even an expensive combination like this is a small fraction of the price of a helicopter and it doesn't endanger human life to anything like the same extent. Also, it is reasonable to take more risks when not carrying a human passenger. In fact the whole process of certification of human-carrying aircraft is, for the most part, vastly more onerous than a typical drone. (There are some simpler rules for microlights and the like, but they are not applicable to helicopters).

Then there is the much more demanding tests to train and qualify as a helicopter pilot. There is nothing remotely as demanding for qualifying to fly civilian drones - courses are measured in days.

So no, helicopters are a great deal less likely to crash than drones, but the consequences are much, much worse.

For one thing, if a failsafe kicks in and it lands or "returns to home" it can and do hit trees on their way down.Look at the owner comments for Horizon Hobby's Chroma drone - half of the comments are about it flying away and never being found! I've been in R/C since around 2005 (and have a MSEE degree and have built a drone from scratch), and even I struggle to understand how that happens. Maybe they took off w/o a GPS lock (but I'm surprised the software would allow that), the RF link failed, therefore the RTH failsafe kicked in, but the drone thought the home position was somewhere in China....

This drone comes with triple redundancy of everything (assuming you get it with the option A3Pro triple GPS/compass modules...you'd be silly not to). As such the chance of catastrophic system failure, assuming it is well maintained, is extremely low.

However, much bigger risk is that of the operator. Much bigger. This is not a drone for a pilot with little experience, its a professional tool.

"Only took me 3 years to get around to it, but I almost have my drone built (ready to fly kits did not exist before then, they came out right around that time and were expensive). I plan to use a GF7, but fear the slow mechanical shutter (and electronic shutter is even slower) might not work well...Might hang it from rubber bands (upside down, attached by tripod socket (and other secondary methods) to wood which will be hanging via the rubber bands) to isolate it. I've been shooting 1000's of aerials since 2007, well before most thought to do it, and well before drones.

Latest in-depth reviews

The Nikon Z6 may not offer the incredible resolution of its sibling, the Z7, but its 24MP resolution is more than enough for most people, and the money saved can buy a lot of glass. Find out what's new and notable about the Z6 in our First Impressions Review.

Many cameras today include built-in image stabilization systems, but when it comes to video that's still no substitute for a proper camera stabilization rig. The Ronin-S aims to solve that problem for DSLR and mirrorless camera users, and we think DJI has delivered on that promise.

The SiOnyx Aurora is a compact camera designed to shoot stills and video in color under low light conditions, so we put it to the test under the northern lights and against a Nikon D5. It may not be a replacement for a DSLR, but it can complement one well for some uses.

At its core, the Scanza is an easy-to-use multi-format film scanner. It offers a quick and easy way to scan your film negatives and slides into JPEGs, but costs a lot more than similar products without a Kodak label.

Latest buying guides

If you're looking for a high-quality camera, you don't need to spend a ton of cash, nor do you need to buy the latest and greatest new product on the market. In our latest buying guide we've selected some cameras that while they're a bit older, still offer a lot of bang for the buck.

What's the best camera for under $500? These entry level cameras should be easy to use, offer good image quality and easily connect with a smartphone for sharing. In this buying guide we've rounded up all the current interchangeable lens cameras costing less than $500 and recommended the best.

Whether you've grown tired of what came with your DSLR, or want to start photographing different subjects, a new lens is probably in order. We've selected our favorite lenses for Sony mirrorlses cameras in several categories to make your decisions easier.

Whether you've grown tired of what came with your DSLR, or want to start photographing different subjects, a new lens is probably in order. We've selected our favorite lenses for Canon DSLRs in several categories to make your decisions easier.

For the past few weeks, our readers have been voting on their favorite photographic gear released in the past year in a wide range of categories. Now that the first round of voting is over, it's time to pick the best overall product of 2018.

Sony had the full-frame mirrorless market to itself for nearly five years, but it's no longer alone – the Nikon Z6 and Canon EOS R have both arrived priced to compete with the a7 III. We take a head to head to head look at these three cameras.

As if it needed one, the triple-camera smartphone might really be the final nail in the compact camera's coffin. DPR contributor Lars Rehm brought the LG V40 on a hiking trip recently and found it to be a huge leap forward in terms of creative freedom.

Renowned UK-based landscape photographer Nigel Danson has been using DSLRs for years. In this video, created exclusively for DPReview, Nigel discusses his experience using the Nikon Z7 and why he's excited about mirrorless cameras. (Spoiler... beautiful scenery ahead.)

Chinese optical manufacturer Kipon has added the Nikon Z and Canon R mounts to its range of adapters made to attach medium format lenses from Hasselblad, Mamiya, Pentax and others to full frame cameras.